I rushed to the front of the module to where Zia was having a mild panic attack. “Something is closing on our position really, really fast,” Zia almost shrieked and poked the screen bringing up all the details of what the craft was and how fast it was closing in on us.

  “Don’t worry, we have a whole minute and forty five seconds before they’re on top of us and I doubt if they’ll blast us out the air without identifying us first,” I said soothingly as Vanessa joined us, wrapped up in her blanket as I turned the screen to the strategic overview.

  “We don’t have any way of defending ourselves,” Zia said, still panicking.

  “We have my suit.” I said.

  “But we don’t have any weapons. What are you going to do? Punch it out of the sky?” Zia asked. Vanessa looked back at me and our eyes met, I felt myself smiling despite myself. Vanessa grinned back as I unplugged the suit from the module. Red lights flashed and an alarm went off.

  “Don’t worry, we have done this sort of thing before, dear, now let's get rid of this alarm and some of these nasty red lights. Hmm, the capacitors should keep up going for a few minutes so we should have power to manoeuvre…” Vanessa said, maternally, patting Zia on her shoulder as I entered the suit. I checked to make sure everything was synced up as it should have been, then did a quick system check before opening the module door and stepping into the container that shuddered under the suit’s mass.

  The coms crackled. “Shut the door, dear, you’re letting in all the cold air,” Vanessa said.

  “Let me get out first, woman,” I grumbled, shutting the door, then tried to open the original doors to the container. They’d been sealed shut for what must have been years and were reluctant to budge. When they finally did so, one of them came loose to the sound of tearing metal and was caught by the slipstream. I watched it spin slowly down to the icefield a quarter of a kilometre below us.

  I engaged the suit’s camouflage, jumped out of the container and let myself fall towards the ice fields below with only the slightest of anxious twinges. A few metres before I hit the ice, I gave the suit as much throttle as my body could comfortably handle in a trajectory parallel to the ice fields a few metres below me, then up to the shuttle which was lining up to take a shot at the airship.

  I hit the shuttle from below, arms outstretched in an impact that rattled my teeth. The front left nacelle shattered like glass and I swear I heard the pilot scream like a little girl, even over the shuttle's engines and the sound of shattering composite. I grabbed hold of the freshly exposed framework and accelerated, glorying in the suit’s power as I flipped the shuttle over.

  As the pilot and I fought for control of the craft, the frame I was holding started to bend out of shape. I reached further into the craft’s innards and grabbed a large, important, expensive looking piece of machinery with thick tubes coming out of it, an essential part of the cooling system, even in this climate. As the pilot desperately tried to dislodge me I extended a universal wrench from one of the suit’s fingers on my free hand and undid the bolts holding it in place. The machinery held on until I’d managed to undo nine of the ten bolts attaching it to the shuttle before it ripped free in an explosion of coolant.

  I regained control and re-orientated myself in time to watch the shuttle turn tail and fly erratically away as fast as its overheating engine could take it. My work done, I headed back to the airship and dropped the cooling module on the floor of the container. That sort of thing could be sold in Kacke for a small fortune, especially if there was a desperate buyer already lined up.

  Then, belatedly, I remembered the heavy laser that Zia had liberated from the airship. I pulled it from its hiding place, waited for the suit to establish a connection with it and pointed it in the direction of the once sleek shuttlecraft.

  Synced with the module, the suit picked the shuttle up easily, and with a targeting system designed to pick out targets two hundred million kilometres away, it was all too easy to lock on. The heavy laser hummed, the shuttle jinked madly as the pilot realised they were being targeted but that didn’t stop me carving my initials on the rear cargo door.

  I watched to make sure the pilot didn’t get a sudden attack of suicidal courage but as soon as it was clear the shuttle was on a one way course to crash land on the Ice Plains I reentered the module. I clumped over to the suit's usual resting place and before I could get out Zia grabbed the power cable out the suit’s crotch, plugged it into the module and stepped out of the way for me to exit.

  The suit opened to the smell of coolant and Vanessa’s shower gel. Before I could get my balance Zia flung her arms around me and kissed me on the mouth and we went stumbling across the module to land in a pile on the floor.

  “My hero. That was fucking awesome, but we got the laser out the other shuttle. You could have just blasted the shuttle out the sky instead of having it escape,” Zia shouted enthusiastically into my ear. I glanced over to the Captain’s chair to where Vanessa was watching, a look of amusement on her face.

  “That wouldn’t have been any fun. Anyway, those shuttles are pretty much laserproof unless you hit a vulnerable spot. All that heavy laser does is tattoo the outer skin.” I told her as I extracted myself, not having the heart to berate Zia for inappropriate contact.

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  “What Bran isn’t telling you is that with the targeting system on this module synced up to the FYT suit, he could have quite easily hit every vulnerable spot on that shuttle before the pilot knew what hit him,” Vanessa said from the Captain’s chair.

  “So you beat up that poor innocent shuttlecraft just for fun?” Zia asked, grinning at me.

  “Not just for fun, that shuttle is going to crash land on the Ice Planes and the Free Enterprise’s crew are going to have to spend time and resources rescuing the pilot and recovering the shuttle as opposed to pursuing us.”

  “Do you really think a Special Agent is going to care enough about a pilot and a shuttle to call off the pursuit to rescue them?” Vanessa asked.

  “He won’t want to leave evidence lying around. I also suspect he was relying on that shuttle to get him off the planet without having to answer awkward questions. He’s going to need parts to get the other shuttle working, if nothing else.”

  “Yeah, they’ve committed one hell of an airspace violation. This has ‘diplomatic incident’ written all over it. Actually, I’m going to call my handler and report it.” Zia said, suddenly all business.

  “Oh yeah. I forgot we’re all legal and official.”

  “Wait, are you saying we’re the good guys?” Vanessa asked.

  “I have always seen myself as one of the good guys, but it’s a bit of a novelty to have the law agree with me for once,” I said as Zia disappeared to her bunk to make the call to her handler, whoever that was. I went to sit on the arm of the Captain’s chair next to Vanessa. She was still wrapped in her blanket that she let slip off one shoulder as I sat down.

  “Did you have fun?” she asked, smiling at me.

  “Of course,”

  “I love the smell of shuttle coolant, it brings back memories,” she paused, then gave me a look. “Sooo, are you up for it?” she asked.

  “Did you have a specific planet in mind, or did you want me to pick a planet at random and exterminate the inhabitants?”

  “Don’t be like that. The Courts officially recognised our species and gave permission for a Neko homeworld fifty years ago… But the planets that have been suggested are already populated and for some reason the existing populations are reluctant to move or share with us.”

  “Historically, neither option has ever ended well.”

  That is the opinion of the Neko High Council as well. We want an uninhabited world, suitable for Neko habitation.”

  “Just how did you get involved in all this? You’ve never been into politics before. Well, not at this level.”

  “I am the most famous Neko alive.”

  “The word is infamous. And you’re only just alive.”

  “I’m alive enough to cause trouble. Actually I’m more of a deniable asset but if I succeed I’ll become a legend.”

  “If you’re classing yourself as a deniable asset it sounds like you’re planning on breaking a lot of laws.”

  “Not just laws, Galactic Treaties.” Vanessa said with relish.

  “And just how have Jeckon Intelligence become mixed up in all this?”

  “Well, Jeckon’s number one on the list of ‘Places to dump the Neko.’ Not that it’s popular with us. Just because most of us have fur, doesn’t mean we like the cold.”

  “Over the years, I’ve noticed your fur is strictly ornamental. But that would explain all that prejudice against Neko’s in Crystal Springs. I take it that some well funded, ambitious politician is stirring up trouble.”

  “Not just one. There’s a well established anti-Neko movement and it’s been causing trouble since the list of potential planets was released. Jeckon Intelligence believes it is in their best interests to help us find our planet and pull the teeth of one of their government’s more irritating opponents.”

  “Okay, so say I agree to help you. Unless things have changed greatly in the last century, every suitable planet, in every goldilocks zone, in all of human controlled space has been terraformed into some sort of habitability and been populated.”

  “Who said we need to be in human controlled space?” Vanessa asked, tearing her face away from the screens and looking at me for the first time, probably to enjoy the look of stunned amazement on my face.

  “Vanessa, there are treaties and there are Treaties.” I told her. Vanessa smiled her seductive smile with an extra helping of canine.

  “Unless you’ve been keeping an unknown habitable planet to yourself, do you have a better suggestion? It’s not like the Corporations can want us any deader than they want us now.”

  “Oh, believe me, they can.”

  “Well, okay, they can. But if we disappear out of human territory they can’t really ask the nearest aliens to give us back… Can they?” Vanessa asked, suddenly sounding uncertain. I laughed.

  “Well, they can ask. You’ve never ventured out of human controlled space, have you?”

  “No dear. That’s why I’m asking for your help.”

  “So you have absolutely no idea how we’re going to even find a planet that not one of the twenty active sentient spacefaring species in this section of the galaxy wants.”

  “No dear,” Vanessa said patiently.

  “Or any idea how we would pay for it?”

  “No dear.

  “Do you even have an up to date map?”

  “I have one of those…”

  “What about a spaceship that won’t get us laughed out of orbit?”

  “Umm… Does this module count?”

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